Professor Chen Zhixing

Chen Zhixing was born May 1931 in Guangzhou, South China. He graduated in 1952 from the Chemistry Department of Zhongshan University, Guangzhou and began his educational and researching career in the same university. He become a full Professor in 1983. Professor Chen's major field of research was quantum chemistry and the outcomes were collected in his book "Organic Molecular Orbital Theory" published in 1991. Computer aid instruction was also his successful research, and a series of teaching softwares won the National Prize of Excellent Outcome of Teaching Research in 1989. He acquired the title of National Labour Model in the Educational System in 1986 and retired in 1991.

Professor Chen is a fan of goe. Goe is a kind of intellectual game like chess but much more complicated than the latter. He turned his research direction into the field of artificial intelligence for goe since retiring. His goe program, named Handtalk, defeated all opponents in the 1993 International Computer Goe Congress and won as Champion. This is an achievement far greater than all his outcomes in Chemistry. His Handtalk is still the strongest goe programs at present in the world and is being sold widely in the world market. As goe programming is one of the most difficult and interesting topics in the field of artificient intelligence, Professor Chen will struggle for it all his life.

--cited from International Who's Who of Intellectuals, 12th ed., 1997

Chen Zhixing, the programmer of Goemate/Handtalk, is a Chinese 5 dan amateur goe player. He got the champion of the Chinese National Professor Goe Tournament in 1994.

He founded a company in 1997, named Zhixing Computer Goe Company, to develop goe software and to popularise goe. He is the general manager of the company, but almost only in name. The business of the company is handled by his secretary. He spends most of his time in programming Goemate. In a minor part of programming he was assisted by two assistants in their spare time. He spends a little of his time instructing a team of the company to write another goe program named Wulu.